#anton day

[bestbonnist]

Volume 22 Extras

[whumpy-wyrms]

🍪<- for Anton :3 He deserves to receive the cookie for once

:3 🍪

[kafkaoftherubble]

I do not like Anton one bit

Honestly, the dude ain't high on my list too. Hearing chauvinistic/paternalistic pomp out of Huge Jacked Man (read: bræt) doesn't add points to his charisma stat. AT ALL.

I find it a little funny that we're now in an era where the Hayase rebirth is universally more well-received (Kahaku and Mizuha weren't universal back then) and well-loved than a dude who isn't a rebirth or a suspected rebirth of any prior character. It's also kinda funny because this ended up being a curveball, in-story indictment against a eugenicist's worldview: if people are really hard-coded by their genes, such that manipulation and concentration of good genes (i.e designer babies) will produce good, superior people...

Then why is Anton's perfectly designed ass stuck with this unlikeable, slappable personality, aye?

CHECKMATE, NOKKERS

In all seriousness though, I can't really bring myself to hate Anton. I just can't look past how much his environment made him who he was. The brain-rotting Kaibarapaganda; the devotion to a measurement of merits (Star System) in their meritocratic society; the culture and norms he was shaped by... There are just too many causes to his effects that just don't fall under his responsibility. The causal determinist in me simply cannot look past these to judge someone, and so I'm just annoyed by Anton at worst but kinda okay with seeing him. His side-plot with Tonari will be life-changing for him, I bet.

I'm trying to imagine a scenario where I'll definitely hate the shit out of Anton, but honestly, I think even if he wounds his brother, it won't necessarily make me detest him yet. Unless he, say, does something to Abel that I can reasonably separate from the larger environmental factors he's raised in?

If he looks down on his brother or even sees Abel as a mark of shame because the latter is Lacking (I don't know if Anton knew; I lean on the side of "he's likely ignorant"), I'll definitely hate his ass slightly more. But then it'd be only slightly, because even his prejudice toward Lackings (if Anton had any to begin with) was conditioned by his society and what he learned from the adults around him.

Damn. You just made me realize something, π! Anton is just too emblematic of a well-to-do kid living in Kaibara society for me to not assess his crap as the fault of the system instead of him. A lot of things about him are simply a microcosm of the larger society he lives in.

So yea. If I don't like Anton, it's because I really don't like whatever part of their society that made him like this.

[whumpy-wyrms]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANTON… MY FRIEND……

[whumpy-wyrms]

it’s anton’s birthday and that means i get to go insane about him all day without feeling annoying about it >:)

[bestbonnist]

Chapter 174

The big question for this chapter is why AD helped the doll escape. My theory is that he's trying to keep Anton, specifically, away from her, but it's worth noting that a lot of people think he and the doll/32 have some sort of special connection.

I don't think that's very likely. His parents are 4-star or 3-star, not allowed on the fifth level, and there was an eight year time-skip between when the doll was thrown into the garbage shoot (and presumably when 32 died) and when she woke up. AD was about eight years old at the time Andy was born. The Mizuha clones were in a lab on the highest level. Although AD has an uncle—Rabbit—who is a Kaibara employee, it's very unlikely that he was up there without a tag-chip at eight years old. It's possible, I guess?? But it doesn't make much sense.

AD was also looking for the doll on Rabbit's orders the first few times we saw him. He even successfully captured her at one point. But clearly something's changed. Between then and now, the new variable that's been added to the equation is Anton. In Chapter 170.4, AD had Bon in his hands but voluntarily let him go when he saw that Anton was in trouble. Helping the doll might be an attempt to undermine Anton's reign of terror for his own good.

Or, actually? The doll is the one who suggests that AD may have come to warn them, because she wants to believe that she has a past and that there are people out there who care about her. But it might just be that she spared his life and he wanted to repay the favor. He would probably prefer capturing an immortal to capturing someone who's lacking like him.

Fushi's still doing their best to respect other people's resolve. Maybe not the right call for this specific situation but good on them.

If AD never had a chip embedded to begin with, that means his mom gave birth to him, meaning—by Fushi's logic—that his parents loved each other that much. And it's true, when they have Andy made they do seem pretty lovey-dovey. But having the first child born naturally and the next child created exactly how they like seems to imply that there's something unsatisfying about AD. Something "lacking," as it were. Sorry.

Although AD is literally from both of their DNA, they created Andy to match the two of them. Literally, his eye colors were chosen to look like theirs. From an outsider's perspective, AD must seem like the odd one out.

Despite that, AD and Anton's relationship looks pretty good. Anton used to look up to him, we can tell that much from the way he idolized the pick-up hunters and went off to help them the instant he was old enough. Now he's patronizing AD because he's suddenly so much stronger. So... it's a little bit tumultuous. Nothing big, just something tiny that might blow up later.

Just want to say, at this point Fushi's friends die all the time. Gugu just said so on the previous page. Tonari died earlier this morning. It's such a common occurrence that everyone thinks it's a little strange that Fushi's protesting. @kafkaoftherubble pointed out (or I pointed it out... I genuinely don't remember) that they probably don't want their friends to see anything they shouldn't as ghosts. So that's... interesting.

[whumpy-wyrms]

realized it might seem weird to you all about how much i love Anton despite him being kind of a horrible person and a whumper but like. you have all seen only like 20% of who Anton actually is, he’s really different at the beginning of the story vs the end. there’s like 80% of him you haven’t seen yet and have no idea about (the other 3/4 of tllr and all of his lore), and when i say i love him, i’m mostly talking about that 80%

[whumpy-wyrms]

gonna slowly reblog all the anton art today because i CAN and because he deserves it…. you all need to go insane about him with me